Paula Holmes-Greeley: Peace Corps volunteers enrich West Michigan

Just before our family moved to Muskegon, we briefly considered joining the Peace Corps. At that time, the Peace Corps was looking for people with a master’s in business administration to help transition the former Soviet economy into a market economy.

My husband has an MBA and I had studied the Russian language at Michigan State University. We seemed like a perfect fit, but the Peace Corps wasn’t taking any couples with dependents. So we looked for new opportunities here with our two sons instead.

In fact, the entire project was surprising. We thought we would get a dozen or so essays from volunteers with ties to the Muskegon area and we received twice that number, many submitted after the project had started and word began to spread. Several came from former residents; others came from people who moved to this area after their Peace Corps stint.

It turns out more than 450 West Michigan residents are former Peace Corps volunteers. It makes sense. This area is full of volunteers trying to make their world a better place — and succeeding.

The stories and photos taken from around the world over the last five decades were fascinating. There was the startling story from a woman whose fellow volunteer was consumed by a crocodile while he was swimming and the amazing tale from a man who was able to reunite a pair of sisters after decades of separation.

While only a few of the essays were from people who had served in the same country, a patterned emerged. The Peace Corps volunteers were sure that they had learned much more than the people they were sent to help — and were better for it.

You can read all of the essays that we printed, plus a few that were submitted by people with no connections to Muskegon online at www.mlive.com/opinion/muskegon. Just search on Peace Corps essays.

Paula Holmes-Greeley is the editorial page editor at The Muskegon Chronicle. She can be reached weekdays at (231) 725-6354. E-mail: pholmes@muskegonchronicle.com